♠ Trump is on his way to a visit to Saudi Arabia. There is a countdown clock to the meeting. The Saudis are hopeful that the lurch toward favoring Iran that occurred under President Obama will be arrested and reversed by President Trump. The first article talks about the religious split (Saudi Arabia is Sunni Muslim, Iran is Shiite Muslim), but doesn’t mention the racial animosity between the countries: Saudi Arabia is Semitic, Iran is Indo-European, and I think it is a mistake not to bring that point up in these racially charged times. I once worked with Iraqi expatriates, and they hated the Iranians, but were contemptuous of the Saudis (they described Saudi Arabia as the “Mexico” and Iraq as the “USA”). But I digress. There is a hilarious quote concerning President Trump in the first linked article: “‘I hope he is very careful, nuanced and informed in his wording and body language, given the political earthquakes he could cause by repeating some of his previous rhetoric in such a setting,’ Sullivan said.” This is in reference to the speech Pres. Trump intends to make about the problem of Islamic extremism.

Online sales has proven too convenient. There’s also, I would think, a better “sales capture”, since packing that regretted impulse purchase back into a box and taking the box to FedEx or the Post Office is a lot more trouble than carrying it back to the store.